This blog features observations from Randy Turner, a former teacher, newspaper reporter and editor. Send news items or comments to rturner229@hotmail.com

Monday, July 13, 2015

Joplin CIty Manager's update to council provided

(The following update was provided by City Manager Sam Anselm to the Joplin City Council last week.)

Good afternoon, everyone. As always, thank you for your time and attention to this report; I hope
you find it informative.

Key Meetings

On Wednesday the Infrastructure Team and I met with our engineering consultants to
discuss the next steps on putting together the projects utilizing the $58+ million dollars
that you approved for infrastructure work within the recovery area. We have asked for
their list of recommended projects by July 20th so staff can review/rank them, and prepare
the amended HUD Action Plan for your consideration and approval at our regular
meeting in August.

Yesterday I met with Major Douglas Stearns, who will be heading up our local Salvation
Army operation, to familiarize him with some of the activities going on around the city,
and to hear what his organization is up to.

Following up on an item that was discussed at this year’s JACC board retreat, yesterday
afternoon I attended a meeting at the chamber offices with representatives from the
business and nonprofit communities, Joplin Schools, and MSSU to have a conversation
about what we can do as a community to help strengthen the role and impact of our
nonprofits in the area. I will serve on the steering committee as a resource towards this
effort.

Earlier this morning I met with a local business owner and with Callie Hudson to discuss
the use of Memorial Hall as one of several downtown venues to host a music festival in
August.

Later in the morning I attended the Owens Corning announcement along with staff and
members of council. The event was well-attended by both elected officials and local
business representatives, and the governor was there as well.

Project Cannonball is one of
the projects that was slated for use of CDBG-DR funds, so as those details get finalized,
you can look for a sub-recipient agreement to be brought to you in the future.

Finally, this afternoon I met with representatives of Schneider Electric, who are interested
in performing an energy audit of our facilities to determine if there is an opportunity to
realize some cost savings if we move towards more energy-efficient programs and
equipment. The audit itself would be performed at no cost to the city other than about 10
hours of staff time compiling past utility bills, accompanying their staff on a tour of our
facilities, etc. I will work with staff on the schedule, and once the company completes the
report I will pass it along to you for your review.

Miscellaneous

We’ve received some calls from members of council this week about the progress, or
lack thereof, of having some of our businesses in the Crossroads Industrial Park be
annexed into the city. I’ve asked Director Bolander to work with Rob O’Brian to circle
back with the businesses in question.

In response to neighbors’ concerns, we have placed permanent “No Parking” signs at the
following locations around the stadium:

-High Avenue from Broadway to 4th, on both sides of the street

2
nd Street, from School Ave. to Michigan, and from Comingo to McKee, on the
south side of the street

-Jasper Street, from School to High, both sides of the street
o Comingo, from 4th to 3rd, on the east side of the street

We will continue to monitor the situation and make adjustments as necessary to ensure
that adequate police and fire protection can service the area in the case of an emergency.

Earlier this week I asked IT Director Mark Morris to run a report showing the number of
viewers who have watched our council meetings online. Going back to the start of the
fiscal year, we’ve had 528 unique visitors to our streaming video page (full disclosure,
I’m one of them).

Annually, we pay $20,520 for the service provided by Granicus, or
about $39 per visitor. I am having some trouble justifying the expense when the amount
of traffic we get on social media and our website is much higher. I have asked staff to
explore other options to capture/record our meetings and make them available online at
no cost to the city, and possibly reallocate those funds to provide additional
website/social media support. But as we work through those details, I wanted to share at
least a nugget of what we look at when we go through our annual budget process.

We have had 19 individuals sign up so far for our inaugural Citizens Academy that will
start on September 3rd, and I have been told that we have received some hard copy
applications as well.

This week, AtCM Brian Kelly has been working on a grant application to receive
$50,000 from the Small Business Administration to make it easier for small businesses to
apply and receive a business license.

In an effort to continue to find ways to make our
operations more efficient, this grant could help in a number of ways that we are eager to
explore if awarded the grant. There is no cost-share component of the grant, but if
awarded, we would need to commit to having a streamlined website and other tools
available within a year of the award. Grant recipients are expected to be announced in
August.

From PW:
o The heavy rainfall events have taxed our sanitary sewer system. We’ve had
numerous sanitary sewer overflows (SSO’s) and the crews are doing what they
can to mitigate the problems and cleanup afterwards.

More of the DED projects are getting to the substantial completion stage – again,
the rain has not helped in keeping these projects on schedule either.

The Street Maintenance division has made progress in making the ride on Main
Street better – we have not yet tackled the intersections or the south bound lanes –
the intersections will most likely be done at night to minimize the conflicts with
traffic flow – still working through how we will ultimately make these “band-aid”
type repairs in the intersections.

-20th is now closed for the grade separation project to get fully underway with the
associated calls from citizens that come with closing down a major street. We’ll
be monitoring the traffic patterns in the area and determining what if any
additional traffic controls need to be installed.

In the Pipeline

Next week I will be in budget meetings with departments for most of the day beginning
on Wednesday and carrying through until Friday.

I will be attending the school board meeting on July 28th along with Director Bolander,
Deloitte, and possibly a state CDBG representative to field questions and provide
information to the board about the early childhood center project.

As you are aware, the
project was included in a previous action plan amendment, but before we proceed with
entering into a sub-recipient agreement and signing an MOU between interested parties,
we want to make sure that the school district is still in support of the project.

So I have
asked if the board would be willing to take a yes/no vote at the conclusion of their
meeting in order to give us the direction we need to continue the process to bring it to you
for consideration and approval.

To date, about $80,000 has been spent working with the
district on the endeavor, which can be charged to the project itself if the school board and
the city council both decide to proceed; if either party chooses not to move forward, those
expenses will have to come out of our (limited) CDBG-DR admin budget.
If you have any questions or comments about the information provided to you in this week’s
report, please let me know.

Why is there a need to make it easier to procure a business license, or maybe I'm asking what type? I got my LLC started for about $60 with very little difficulty. Is this addressing some specifics like inspections for Brick and Mortar businesses or am I missing something. Honestly, the process I went through was very easy and not sure that someone having trouble with it should be running a business to begin with. I'm not choosing anonymous below for any reason other than I have none of the other profiles.

What is your point, other than to take a cheap shot? It clearly states on the post where it comes from. It is obvious I am not taking credit for it. I provide a lot of information that comes directly from news releases and government sources.What I don't do is take a news release and put the words "From staff reports," like the Joplin Globe and other area newspapers do. When I run a news release, I tell you where it comes from.

hahahahaha...the King of Cheap shots questions whether something is a cheap shot? That's classic. Maybe the point of the post was you can get the same info from the citys own website. So maybe the "great reporting" comment was a bit humorous.

About Me

I am a former teacher in the Joplin and Diamond, Missouri, school districts. Before entering the teaching field, I spent 22 years as a reporter and editor for various Southwest Missouri newspapers. I have published three novels, Small Town News, Devil's Messenger, and No Child Left Alive, and seven non-fiction books, The Turner Report, Newspaper Days, Silver Lining in a Funnel Cloud, Greed, Corruption, and the Joplin Tornado, 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado, Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado, Scars from the Tornado and Let Teachers Teach.

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